August 30, 2005

I hate when you sit down in a stall next to another guy in a public bathroom, and neither of you do anything because it’s too awkward to shit with another person there. It sparks a silent battle of strength and patience to see who will get tired of waiting and leave first, thus granting the other domain of all stalls and the opportunity to make as much splashing noise as needed. The shamed exiter must wander until he finds another men’s room to begin the process again – but before he leaves the first stall, he will grab a piece of toilet paper to act out a faux-wipe. He’ll be sure to bang around with the toilet paper dispenser to make his actions obvious, because, though both participants are fully aware that the loser of the silent war hasn’t taken <i>done</i> anything, for him to acknowledge that he was too anxious to take a dump with another guy there is weak and immasculine.

Similarly, guys who are “pee-shy” and can’t use the urinals in the presence of others will use the faux-flick-and-shake when the second guy arrives at the urinal beside him and renders the first unable to do anything but stand for an obligatory 30-second period. Some deal with pee-shyness by using the stall, so will have to faux-wipe to avoid being seen as a pussy who has to pee sitting down. (Pee-shyness is one of the most humiliating disorders a man can have.)

Needing to find an empty bathroom is annoying, but certain conditions can make it an agonizing experience. Those with diarrhea can end up spending hours anxiously scouting out a good bathroom that is likely to stay empty for a long time. Lucky for them, the Transgendered community on campus has campaigned to install several single-stall unisex bathrooms to deal with that very issue.

What I love about men’s bathrooms is all the fantastic art on the stall doors, particularly in the one in Norlin Library near the Macintosh lab, where normally-politically-correct intellectuals go to practice their misogynistic calligraphy under the sheath of anonymity. I just saw an incredibly detailed and accurate drawing of an attractive, large-breasted young woman giving a disembodied penis a blow job. Beside her was the mindful question, “would you rather fuck Condoleeza Rice or Hillary Clinton?” followed by a forum of clever answers and then a spattering of commentery on the Iraq war. I’m glad that college guys astute enough to comment on international politics aren’t above joking about which middle-aged women they’d like to fuck.

At work I clean the bathrooms from time to time, so have an opportunity to get a peek at the women’s room to find that it is always very orderly and unmarked. Mind you I just walked out of a men’s room with half an inch of water covering most of the floor, where I shook my head at the nameless, faceless guys who find amusement at shoving entire toilet paper rolls into small urinal drains, so am left with enhanced realization of the disparity between the two rooms. But though the women’s room is much cleaner and more friendly, blank stall doors are hardly entertaining, and never educational. And lets face it, it’s occasionally fun to be gross. That is one reason I am glad to be a guy.

Science is the process of forfeiting what we want to be true or what we think is true to accept what we observe to be more likely true through a process designed to seek truth in spite of our ever-present biases and preconceptions. Because science functions this way, we are often called to accept facts and ideas we don’t like – but reality exists the way it does whether we acknowledge it or not, and we will be affected by reality the way it is whether we acknowledge it or not. Through our willingness to change our views, we discover obsctacles we didn’t realize we faced, and once we accept them we can begin to cope with reality’s unavoiadable consequences.

Many of us are led by science to make uncomfortable adjustements to our religious views on the age, size, and nature of the material Universe. But when we accept theories like the Big Bang Theory and the Origin of the Species, we find that the ultimate questions (about the purpose of existence) are still up to Faith and we make medical and technological advancements in the meantime. Similarly, many of us are led by science to make the uncomfortable acknowledgement that our behavior, including the fuels we consume, impacts the environment we live in, sometimes dangerously. But through the discovery of unfortunate circumstances like Global Warming and environmental pollution, we can expend a little effort to adjust our behavior now, by cutting back on our use of fossil fuels, and avoid the much greater effort of saving ourselves when the situation has reached a higher state of urgency.

It is vital to build a moral and legal system within and fully acknowledging the discoveries of science, rather than denying reality in order to continue our lifestyles as they are. In a dichotomized society like the United States, we see that some political groups are much more willing to acknowledge science while others live in a dreamworld where the Universe seems to constantly absolutely validate oneself and one’s own irresponsible behavior. This one-sided attention to science gives the initial impression to an observer that science itself has a “bias” toward one political group. However, an “objective” observer will be able to recognize the desired objectivity within science itself, and realize importance of NOT POLITICIZING SCIENCE.

Those involved in science know more than anyone how widely science is misunderstood by most people who analyze it from a political paradigm. Science is independent and functions independently of influence – it is impossible to conduct “biased” or “unbiased” science because science functions under the understanding that bias is always there, and is rooted in testing, observation, review, and re-testing, rather than systemic critique from a political standpoint. Specific facts and figures can be validated yet later falsified through tests containing innacurate auxiliary assumtpions, but the existence of a sexuality-gene or distant planet orbiting a distant star are single-fact hypotheses that haven’t yet been supported by the interconnectedness of widely-accepted grand-Theories like Relativity and Evolution, each fitting into a vast network of interconnected ideas that strongly support each other.

Anyway, back to my point, it is clear that one group of people more strongly supports science than the other. As Liberals and Progressives, we, with an unwaverable base morality of human rights and dignity that all Americans basically share, are willing to adjust our secondary behaviors and political views in acknowledgement of what science calls to our attention. We tend to accept the theory of that states that greenhouse gasses effect global climate, as this has been the case through previous ice ages and warm periods and has been observed to be occuring today, and based on that acknowledgement, we develop a moral opinion that we should release less greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere by consuming less fossil fuel. We accept the discoveries of scientists who specialize in medicine stating that THC can have positive medicinal effects in spite of our attitues toward recreational users, so are generally willing to legalize perscribed medicinal use of marijuana. It is logical that, since Liberals are more likely to accept the findings of science, most scientists are likely to call themselves liberal. It is also logical that, since Liberals are interested in the findings of science, they are willing to fund it, to seek new discoveries that might require us to change our minds about more issues, for the benefit of all. HOWEVER, it is always important that we continuously avoid the politicization of science. As I have said, science functions independently and is then used as foundation for our social morals and opinions. It should never be the other way around – social morals and opinions shouldn’t be the foundation for science. Pesudo-science resulting from a reversed system has spawned arianism, eugenics, social darwinism, the ridiculously bigoted findings of the Family Research Institute, and so-called “Creation Science.”

Science gives us a workable model of the nature of reality, and we build our morals over it. We aren’t obligated to trust everything in science, but if we want to criticize a particular finding, we have to first become scientists, and accept the rules and the process of science. We can’t stand outside science as a whole and claim it has political bias, and we can’t interperet scientific findings selectively for the sake of our political views. Otherwise we come out ignorant, spouting irrelevant facts and critiques, and reason solely to justify irresponsible behavior.

August 23, 2005

Yeah, I’m fucking awesome. I’m walking through campus in tight clothes and aviators, looking ahead as everyone checks me out. The glasses hide my eyes so I can catch a glimpse of people glancing at me, thinking my eyes are off somewhere else. The more audacious girls smile in my direction and the guys nod and grin, letting me know they recognize our masculine covalence. A tall guy from a student group darts through the crowd to hand me a free T-shirt. I avoid him, saying I already have one, but he follows me, throwing it over my shoulder and telling me I could really use it. I’m that cool.
It’s not until I get to the courtyard behind the Student Center that I realize: not only is my fly open, but . . . shit’s hanging out. Sweet.

August 13, 2005

Marijuana is the drug of equality and humble acceptance, of back-to-the-Earth values, of idealism, of nonviolence, of the universiality of human experience. Marijuana is the lifestyle of the poor, of the pure, of the untainted by materialist endeavors, of those unmoved by the vast empire of puritannical corruption. Run across a stoned stranger and it’s like a meeting between old friends, connecting through the brotherhood of sacred deviance.

Cocaine is where marijuana meets Manhattan. Cocaine is the drug of the elite and sexy – the the high-fashion brand-name, making no attempt at humility or richeousness. Cocaine is the flashy dress and aviators, the diamond necklace, the slick-styled haut monde hairstyle and expensive suit jacket dangling open buttonless to show waxy, tanned skin. Cocaine is the gawdy in disguise. It is the dirty secret, known by the few to leave the world beneath your class. The four of you parade from bathroom single-file, you descreetly tuck the rolled-up twenty in your pocket and you’re the fucking tabloid, the fucking high-class, so stick your chest out; you’re an exclusive member of the glitterati and they all want in. Everyone wants to fuck you so it’s your pick, who’s the hottest in the room. You know they all whisper when you’re not looking. You’re the one up in front at the parties and the one hidden in back behind dark sunglasses in class, above it. Every word is a social statement, every slip is excused by your blessed insanity. You know no one can reach you; one might catch you for a moment if you let them but one step and you’re already miles ahead.

I love those mini-enclave four-person-bathroom-breaks at keggers when irritated people line up knocking at the door ouside because they need to piss. You go in dull and woozy and come out feeling – WHAM! – sexy and elite, numb-gummed and grinning silently at those pathetic outsiders who don’t know what just went down (but could probably guess).

August 11, 2005

God, I need you to bubble out of your emptyness, I need you to come out of where you live between the atoms and talk to me a while.
First I need to know if you’re real, and if I’m real, or if I’m just a bunch of fucking molecules as I was lead to beleive by virtually every science magazine I’ve read, that when I die everything is just going to blink out. I need to know now, because if I am really an unconscious chemical process I might as well get it all over with but if I’m not I don’t want to do what would turn out to be rash. I’d like for you to materialize right in front of me and tell me what I am, so I don’t have to doubt it – and I know this might be against the rules, I know that you’ve never shown yourself that way since the beginning of the Universe in spite of the billions who have asked for it and you probably don’t plan on ever doing it for anyone until the Universe ends, but I don’t see why I can’t be the one exception. I wouldn’t tell anybody I’m not supposed to tell.
And failing that I’d like for you to work my shit out. Oh, I know about all that “responsibility” crap, that I have to do it on my own so I learn from life and I’m just not putting forth the effort, but if that’s the case I need you to put the things I need right in front of me because I don’t know how to get them otherwise; I don’t go anywhere unless I know where it is and then it’s only if I’m sure I can make it. So I’d like for you to find me a roommate and an apartment for next year: let somebody call me tomorrow who wants to live with me and has a cheap place all worked out. I want you to find me friends who will always think I’m wonderful and aren’t annoyed by my depressions, and could you please get me published soon? And get me a better job than Quiznos but don’t make me tell my boss I’m quitting because I know she would be mad.
And please God find me someone who can love me utterly and carry me for the rest of my life so I don’t have to do anything on my own. Please send somebody now because I hate waiting not knowing if this person is coming, so if I absolutely have to wait could you please just tell me the day it’s happening so I can distract myself until then.
I’m thinking about how I’ve always prayed for this perfect man, this guy with brown eyes and dark hair and he’s skinny and likes plants and believes in God and is an ex-Catholic who hates capitol punishment. Now I’m thinking that if it happened I wouldn’t be happy, because I already love Matt, even though you and I both know I can’t be happy with him anymore. So I’m not asking you to make him love me, but if you could make him perfect then make him love me, that would be great. Just keep him fun and bubbly and let him have the same soul and his stubby toes and generosity and soft skin, his little beard and happy eyes and flitty tongue and cute chubby dick, but take away the bipolar and the secrecy and the passive-aggressive and wanting someone better than me and being annoyed by me and making me feel bad all the time. If you make him love me I’ll make him happy, serve him and kiss his feet and wipe his tears and be exactly wants me to be and live my whole life just to make him happy. Just make him love me, so he’ll pet my face and give me massages, moan when I eat his ass and be always turned on and be horny, bouncy, needy, and happy, just like the cute little baby-face he is, like it was in the beginning but this time real. Because that’s what he is, just a cute little pink baby, and I want to be one too, with him, forever.
I don’t want to be myself anymore, I feel like I’m constantly at an effort to keep myself moving and when I stop I’m constantly at an effort to keep myself still, that I’m always battling these diverse unconscious conflicting desires and phisiological needs and I don’t want to be this mass of matter that scatters when a living thing stops working to hold it in. I want to stop exerting effort for the rest of my life and just flow with things. I want to stop feeling pain. I’m like a left foot with no right foot and I’m limping, and always, whether I walk, sleep, eat, think, or pray, I’m lumbering painfully up a steep hill exhausted and all I can think is “when I can STOP!?” I know you’d say I’m not ready to dissipate into the whole Universe and DIE but if I could just merge into one other person, who could carry me, and that person is a Matt-made-perfect by you, that would be really great. I mean, I know I should know better and move on and find somebody else, but he was everything to me for so long, and letting go of everything is exactly the same thing that dying is. I mean, think about it. Why else are people so afraid to die? Yeah, this whole Matt thing feels an awful lot like death. So if I could do just that – just die and wake up inside Matt forever, inside his body, inside his MIND and be inseperable from him…
If you could just do that for me, and satisfy every other need and desire I ever have, I’ll do whatever you want after that. Thanks God.
Sincerely, Matt.